Test and trace

In order to get out of lock down the government will want to put in place a system of tracking and testing for the presence of the virus, to ensure those with it self isolate to stop the spread. They will doubtless want to follow WHO advice on these matters.

The WHO proposes that a country combines technology with people driven systems. Technology can help, but not everyone has smartphones and not all smartphone users will want to download the app. Some who do will get flat batteries or forget to switch on from time to time.

In practice any system relies on people in the country to identify symptoms and self isolate if there is good reason to think they have the virus. They should now have access to tests so they can find out more quickly than 14 days if they need to continue with their self isolation.

It means a person who does have a test and tests positive for the virus also needs to co-operate over recent contacts. The smartphone app could help. Otherwise they need to list their contacts to the authorities who can then in turn advise those people. Even with the app there may well need to be interpretation of the contact advised by the phone, as some may not be serious or lasting contacts, or there may have been some physical separation or barrier which the phone could not see.

As we are dealing with millions of people and possibly thousands of cases, there will be many cases where judgements are made that others may disagree with. What matters is that overall, the majority of cases successfully self isolate all those with the disease and those who came into too much contact with them pending their own tests. It also rests on quick reliable and easy tests. I trust the government now has in place these measures which it says it wants, to allow a more general return to work which is vital for livelihoods and the supply of goods and services.

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That was done back in February 18th
Heathrow had two hotel set aside for people flying back into LondonHoliday Inn and the Ariel.
And another in Milton Keynes.
Search “quarantine hotels at Heathrow”
Even the Guardian has an article confirming it.
Way before you started moaning.

Commandeering hotels for isolation? Would that mean the 100+ a day that has been arriving from France? Seems a terrible punishment – commit a crime – and get put in a hotel and waited on, room cleaned, free electric, hot water, bed changed, free food etc . THAT’LL TEACH EM.

next step the chip inserted at birth. The best tracking for 365/24. Forget your 5G scare stories – the real threat just round the corner. The TV daily (hourly!) broadcasts from Big Brother rotating members of the UK Politburo.
The mobile or chip will prove your are within reach of a TV.
(or else).

Likewise the Ancestry websites. What better way to build a DNA database than to have people voluntarily send in their samples (AND pay for it to be done!) ? If the security forces haven’t yet thought of sequestering those data, they soon will!

Have you ever looked at Mark Z’s profile (for example on Wikipedia), specially his education achievements before writing that he ‘isn’t smart enough to have invented or developed FB’.
Out of curiosity, Graham, what have YOU invented and developed?

Agreed, O’Gorman. These two comments I have seen hold warnings for us: this Orwellian nightmare is what the Democrats in the USA are pushing for, and is what the Chinese already have (and much more). The state China has reached is frankly most alarming, and it is what is being attempted by the Left in the USA and also here, under the guise of healthcare. Step by step, so the public doesn’t realise when the point of no return is reached.

Two comments on tracing:
‘“Contact Tracing” is Orwellian doublespeak for “tracking you at all times”. One more way the globalists are using the virus to push their long planned for agenda’

“Democrats just released HR 6666, also known as “The Trace Act” The bill would provide $100 BILLION to institute contact tracing protocols throughout the country This is the future Democrats want This is a totalitarian power grab from the left….”

There are some principled Tory MPs who have in the past said they want to stand up for our rights and freedoms but they are not making their voices heard in this left of centre government.

I am happy for the government to invade my persona data. And if they uncover anything interesting, may they please tell me!

Seriously, government has to do what it can to beat this coronavirus – not just health but also the economy. I don’t want my nephews and nieces having to pay for this for years to come.

In normal times, of course, our private data is private. But this is not normal times. So the government is welcome to trowel though my private data – couldn’t care less – as long as it helps resolve this crisis.

I wonder how you would feel if (say) you were all set to attend your daughter’s wedding (or perhaps embark on the trip of a lifetime that you had been planning for over a year) and you carefully haven’t allowed yourself to venture outside for 21 days, and then you get (erroneously, in your opinion) a demand via your smart phone that you stay indoors for 14 days because you may have come into contact with someone who has reportedly been displaying symptoms similar to Covid-19?

Or how would you feel if a protest group, perhaps intent on bringing down the economy as we know it, starts making fictitious reports that they have all been displaying Covid-19 symptoms – in a deliberate attempt to inconvenience hundreds or even thousands of other people who may have travelled on the same public transport?

How would you feel if the government seeks to extend the number of reasons it can use the tracking facility for – initially perhaps to combat terrorism?

Or to track a parent who has absconded with their child?

Or to track someone who has been diagnosed with a completely different but highly infectious communicable disease?

If you’re carrying a cellphone or tablet, you are already effectively carrying an ankle tag. It doesn’t even need to be a smartphone.

Location can be traced through GPS & location services if they are turned on, your bluetooth via which devices it comes into contact with (as the current tracing app works). Without those, you can be tracked by which cellphone towers your phone pings off or by cell site simulators like Stingrays, and even non-smartphone can offer up IP address, timezone, and network status as well as (obviously) their phone number, as a fingerprint.

Seriously if you’re that concerned about privacy, don’t have a phone at all. Or leave it at home.

A Smartphone should not ordinarily be expected to order me to be confined to my house with no right of redress. As it might do with this buggy blue-tooth tracking technology which also tries to detect whenever you have come too close to anyone else who subsequently claims to be exhibiting CV-19 symptoms.

What Brandon Lewis called a little local difficulty with testing turns out to be having to fly them to the US. The government totally dissembled in its reply on the tracking app and is now scrambling to sort out basic problems that should have been resolved at the design stage .
More frankly ‘lies’ that continue to give me the impression the government is more interested in covering its own backside,

You finish ‘trusting’ the government has measures in place. Don’t you know? If you don’t what chance have we got?

A “2nd Wave” (or 3rd or 4th) are INEVITABLE because we have not allowed the otherwise healthy population to build the herd-immunity – the Government’s initial tactic which seemed to change almost overnight. Why was that, I wonder?

Without that immunological ‘fire-break’ there is nothing to stop the flames spreading again once the wind picks up.

Everything is the fault of the government. They should have planned everything. They should design and manufacture the test kits, the PPE, the vaccines, etc etc and now of course they are also designing the App for tracing. Not a single error has ever been made by the beloved NHS – everything that goes wrong is the fault of the government in general and Boris in particular.
You can’t imagine how relieved I am, M i C, that I don’t live in the world that you crave

First, in order to deal with problems effectively, any business person knows you need to face up to them head on. It seems to be in the nature of politicians and thereby the civil service and NHS management to dissemble. They are not facing problems head-on, else they would be honest with us and themselves.
The fact that we have practically no scientists or self-made successful business people in government has become screamingly obvious in the virus crisis.

+1 Agreed. The overthrow of democracy simultaneously throughout the Western world is a long term plan being implemented on the back of a virus that, certainly for healthy U66s is less dangerous than the ‘flu.

A May 2010 scenario planning report produced by The Rockefeller Foundation and the Global Business Network envisioned the likely creation of a technological police state in response to a deadly worldwide pandemic.

As with all measures introduced by the NHS to combat the virus, what could possibly go wrong with such a fool proof system?

Yesterday Mr Shapps urged people to travel to work on foot or by bicycle because he will severely limit use of train and bus capacity. It is unclear to me if he has calculated the effective capacity of his walking and cycling alternatives while preserving social distancing. Furthermore has he identified how everyone will store their bicycles when they arrive at their intended destinations?

I think actually one could argue that The Goons” ( like most post war comedy) were subversive. In other words they were probably a foundation stone of each and every madness we see today
Had “The Goons” not emerged we might yet have a health service and a government.

e bikes etc. Has Shapps calculated how many of those who want them live on the ground floor as they are very heavy and cannot really be carried up stairs or able to be put in a lift (which would annoy other passengers) and where will the e bikes be put in peoples flats and when they are wet and muddy.

He does know that cars have been getting bigger, doesn’t he?
I am sick and tired of dicing with death because full-grown adults want to cycle on a footpath rather than using a safe cycle-lane. The pendulum has swung too far in favour of the cyclists.

Again, has some sense to it but frankly open to ridicule that the fifth biggest economy in the world (once) should go back to bicycles. Again no thought for the elderly/infirm for whom a cycle is an impossibility and how far does he expect us to travel on these wretched things.

@Nigl; “how far does he expect us to travel on these wretched [bicycles].”

Apparently, according to the Minster yesterday, the DfT thinks the majority only travel 3 miles from home, who are these idiots, even when I used to live and work in the same small village it was further than 3 miles from home to work, at least by footpath/road! Also it might be acceptable to expect people to walk or cycle to/from work in central London but what about say Halifax, sales of mountain bikes would increase though…

I wonder if the DfT have taken some stats of were these ‘typical’ people live and work, then measured a Crows flight path on Google maps to get their ‘typical’ distances?…

The DfT Minsters body language, during his No.10 briefing speech, gave all the appearances of someone who was reading from a script he does not agree with but had been overruled on.

On my cycle to work, the main infirmity I discern amongst the majority car drivers is being out of condition.
Fit people cope better with infections generally, not just the coronavirus where being overweight is a dangerous combination.

I had the need to drive along part of Southsea seafront last week (shopping trips for some elderly friends, before anyone asks) and that route was the quickest and shortest.

There is a very wide and very expensive cycle lane (partly funded via MY Council Tax contributions) alongside the promenade, installed several years ago on the say-so of our Glorious Leader (/s) Gerald Vernon-Jackson.

ALL of the cyclists I passed in that 2 minute transit were NOT using the cycle lane provided for them, but riding slowly (some actually walking) along in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD. Several were clearly annoyed that I had the temerity to ‘want’ to be driving along their new-found playground.

If we can fine people substantial amounts of money for walking in a park then there should also be a hefty financial penalty for cyclists not using a cycle lane where it is provided!

Can’t think what all the fuss is about, surely one can just summon one’s coachman and tell him to prepare one’s barouche or phaeton for a quick jaunt to town for the day? Sadly, because of social distancing, one might have to dump the postillion.

Will Schapps and the rest of them be giving up their ministerial cars.
I thought public transport was some sort of nirvana when we reduced emissions by ditching the car.
Once more personal responsibility is best. The car is king.
Bitter blow for the followers of Greta the xxxxxx and her puppeteers.

The Koreans were using smartphone tracking months ago. They make them. Google and Apple made a download available free. The NHS decided to design its own special app which runs down the batteries and doesn’t keep the information on the phone but in a central computer. How do they manage to screw up IT every time?

Grant Shapps was going all Green a few weeks ago and telling us that we will not be able to use private cars and that public transport is the answer. Now it’s bikes and walking the usual twelve to sixty miles to work. The private car park is the most secure and isolated form of transport but the Chief Officer and ministers show us the graphs of the rising number of journeys made to get to work or buy food and we are ticked off or fined by the police at road blocks. There seems to be some sort of green lurgy creeping over the government.

Limiting the amount of public transport is in sane. Public transport needs to be expanded to more than it was. In the case of the NHS the Govt was keen to open new capacity (Nightingales), have a national effort (ventillators etc), increase labour (retired doctors and nurses, volunteers etc). Where is the equivalent effort to get people and the economy moving?

I am afraid (and I mean genuinely afraid) that this Govt will end up creating a peasant UK and costing millions of lives. When people’s horizons are limited to a half hour walk then we will all suffer.

[If the Govt wishes to move to more walking and cycling with an innovative economy then the means to do this are already known. It is the vertical city not suburban sprawl, high quality rental model in the vertical city (public spaces that people are allowed to use), fast transport between the cities and with international cities. High quality of life and sharing of ideas produces innovation. This is not an overnight transition and does not sit well with an economy dominated by residential ownership]

What Taxes? I’m definitely reducing income and increasing business investment and justifiable expenditure to the point where there is no taxes to pay. Just bring forward all plans. If we have to tighten belts (easier when you re housebound) then HM Gov need to feel the pain! ‘Difficult decision’ for me to inflict pain on them, but I managed it with courage, probably in Government not a ‘popular’ action, but then who wants to be popular with Govt and they hate ‘popularises.
Just remember – you are the real Sovereigns in this country. What we say, collectively, goes!

Martin have you seen the state of France? Riots, the police investigated if they upset a resident of the 750 no-go areas which are exempt from the lockdown! France, and the EU are about to fall in full view of the whole world. Haute Couture will be all black ensemble literally from head to toe.
And all you do is carp at us voting to save you from that!

The leftie fanatics must be rubbing their hands with glee. The planes are looking to be for the elite only, and now bicycles not cars.

I had a rather hysterical vision of my son setting off to work on a bicycle. In my vision he had the 5 1/2 year old on the handle bars, one of the four year old twins on each shoulder, and him muttering that the 30 minute drive, once he’s dropped the twins at nursery, the 5 year old to school – hmm! probably need to allow an hour ….but as he starts work st seven….that won’t work. Okay, wife, she’s going to have to take the kids. You can’t wear your work suit, or convert to a trouser suit…and now it’s raining.

Damn it – get the car out!

Every idea that comes out of government is totally, totally ridiculous!

I’m sorry but I’ve had ENOUGH of this apparent ineptness, and the lockdown!!!!!

I cannot see that this app will contribute very much in practice as most people will remember whom they have been close to anyway if needed. The app, using Bluetooth will give far too many close encounter reading (especially cities) that were not really close enough to be dangerous. Just an app reminding you where you have been for the last few days might be rather better.

The solutions we should be pushing for are some treatments that actually improve survival rates for those that do get it badly. The government keep telling us that the NHS has spare capacity and is coping well. If this is actually true we need to relax the lock down now. But as we know about 25 million people have died without even getting to hospital and even of those that do make it most get little more than tea, sympathy and an oxygen mask. When are all the normal NHS activities to be resumed?

How are blood plasma transfusion trials coming on? What other trials and treatments are being done? What can we learn about who is getting it badly and who is not that might lead to better treatments and knowing who it we should certainly isolate from infections and who does not need to be.

We keep being told the the outcome for old people on full ventilation is not good. This is perhaps true but it is surely often rather better than the outcome if they are denied it as a last resort as many seem to be (even if they what it). Many care home residents seem to have been pushed into signing forms saying that they did not want medical interventions. Who initiated and drove this activity? What incentives did staff have to do this?

Seriously, yes, instead of the avalanche of fact/fiction about the efficacy of various treatments, often I guess to fill column inches or puff a particular company/product, an informed ‘progress chart’ published say bi weekly together with a detailed ‘hot to cold’ spot map, to enable me to avoid certain areas, would be far more helpful both to manage my day to day life and plan for the future, rather than this ‘yet another umpteen poor souls have passed away’ mantra we get at present.

“Most people with covid19 who go onto ventilators will die. Outcomes internationally have shown mortality rates of 60-95% in many countries, including the US, China and Italy” said Dr Jeremy Nel, Infectious Diseases specialist.

“…remind us of your again?”professional medical qualifications
If you lived in 1600, would you ask someone’s “professional medical qualifications”?
If not, why do you ask such now? In 400 hundred years time would a person such as yourself give a jot about “professional medical qualifications” of a “doctor” in 2020?
What is medieval has a sell by date.

LL you keep claiming the death count is over 50,000 and rising. You therefore confirm and support an extended lockdown (whatever it takes). You can’t keep betting against yourself like this.
Do you accept that all deaths by pneumonia and flu should NOT be included in CV19 numbers? Do you accept that desperately ill people, in hospital because of these serious illnesses which are killing them, who contract CV19 (because they are in hospital) and die should NOT be included in CV19 death count?
If not, tata to the economy; I’m sure the Chinese will increase their ‘inward investment’ into desperate U.K. as they are into Greece and Italy and Africa. Bye bye to those nations.

The NHS kills more people every year than the army i.e people die from something they did not suffer from when they were admitted. The NHS pays out an average of £600 million a year in medical negligence claims.

As usual you have no clue what you’re talking about. Let me ask you this – for how long would you have to be close to an infected person for the app to register it as a close contact ? Let me answer for you – you have no idea.

Clearly that is something the software will be able adjust and vary as they go along. But you could get infected in under a second doing some things and not get infected in over an hour doing other things. How will the app know? The Blue tooth range can be quite large. Everyone on a bus for example could be linked.

The NHS in our hospitals are heroic. The same goes for our emergency services.However at the top level of the NHS, The Ministry of Health and The Cabinet we are being badly let down. What ever plan they are working too needs to be scrapped and replaced.

I watched yesterday a short clip disassembling the governments (Professor Ferguson) model. Basically it is fundamentally flawed and is worse than useless. The way in which it was created means that there is no ability to check the data the government has used to justify its actions. It is now becoming clear to many that the government is simply making it all up as they go along and/or, relying on others (WHO) to tell them what to do. Our government is seems only able to react to events rather than be pro-actionary. Hence why is so behind the curve – eg Quarantining of people flying into the country. Something many here were screaming the government to do weeks ago !

Events are leaving the government floundering. People, as discussed by others here, are beginning to return to work. We hear of Ministers and their ridiculous pronouncements, like walking to work. I am sure our kind host would love to cycle to work ? Wokingham to London is about 35 miles and will take you Sir John three and a half hours each way 😉

Please take my advice. Advice I gave at the start. Reduce the briefings to once a week. Calm the situation down and move on to other things. Keep the social distancing for a bit, a return the country to normal. It is getting embarrassing.

The working assumption is to maintain a social distance because you might catch the virus from somebody/anybody, the assumption that everybody has the virus to transmit. The catch-22 is that if everybody has the virus you don’t need to keep a social distance

Pre covid-19 if you started to get flu symptoms you’d take paracetamol and stay in bed (self isolate)

People will automatically isolate themselves if they are feeling the effect of the virus, one would hope, so the real purpose of the app is to locate where a person has been…. This still strikes too many as 1984 methodology – and the fear is that after this has settled down monitoring will continue covertly, somehow.
How on Earth can the government justify supporting and then following WHO guidelines when it has been found to be ineffectual to say the least. They have no expertise that is worth following, and if you check their website they make no bones about the fact that this emergency is an opportunity to reduce world population and pursue the aims of the UN agenda. Why isn’t anybody talking about this? I suppose it’s easier to delete such comments than confront what is really happening.

I’’ve lost confidence in this government through its failure to trust its citizens during this crisis, most recently demonstrated by its reluctance to share its thoughts on lifting the lockdown. They are a disappointment. I hope they improve.

There may be alternative methods of testing. A woman whose husband had Parkinson’s Disease recognised the distinctive smell of her husband when she was near to other affected patients. It emerged that her unusual sensitivity could distinguish between those with & without the disease at an early stage.

Dogs, whose nasal sensitivity has some 1000 times the power of humans are routinely deployed to detect drugs. Some dogs have been found to be capable of reacting to smelling cancer in humans. In view of the high dog population in the UK, perhaps a means of training enough of them to detect Coriovirus would enable a faster and more efficient testing outcome.

Lock down will be a busted flush once some restrictions are lifted. It will be a signal to get back to normal to some, particular the young , but some old are flouting the rules to. My neighbours daughter has stayed overnight for the last 4 weekends and he’s high risk , so all ages will flout the rules.

As for the smartphone app, there will be loads of faulty data from idiots who will say they’ve had coronavirus and haven’t. Employers may not put up with employees staying off work because they’ve came close to someone who thinks they may have had coronavirus.

Like all things this comes down to personal choice, if you have a smart phone and want to download the App you do so, if you do not then you don’t, no one is making any laws to make anyone do it.

From my little knowledge of technology Smartphones can already track your movements to a very high degree, all calls are logged and listed, and I have no doubt GCHQ can listen in on whoever they want, whenever they want.
So if downloading the App helps a little in eradicating this Virus, I do not really see a problem.

My only miss-giving is, will it really will work as well as they think it will.
Whenever has a Government computer programme gone well.
The last effort at trying to get the NHS computerised turned out to be a massive failure that cost us £Billions.

Government to urge us to cycle and walk more. On the roads in and around where I live? No way.

I’d rate my chances better surviving Covid-19 than risk a bike ride.

Driving a car in this borough is made more difficult too. My local council (highway authority) has used Section 14(2) of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to make an Emergency Temporary Prohibition of Use Order to prohibit people from driving on byways (Byways Open All Traffic). Blatant misuse of the legislation or complete ignorance of it given that the Council’s published reason is to“support Government advice of avoiding non-essential travel. Driving on the lanes is not regarded as essential travel.”

I’m surprised and disappointed that there’s not been more disagreement about our loss of freedoms.

Cycling is perfectly safe on most roads. It is drivers who cause most of the issues.

As a cyclist AND a driver I am always cautious around cyclists. Our roads are so pot-holed thanks to Tory austerity that cyclists do sometimes have to swerve at short notice. Give them plenty of space and all is fine.

I’ve cycled extensively around London and providing you are sensible it is a perfectly good way to get around. Faster and better than the tube for short journeys. Why wouldn’t you?

I hope Mayor Khan uses this brilliant opportunity to pedestrianise swathes of Central London and to get rid of cars for good. All of Oxford Street, Regent Street, Soho and the West End should be care free. It is Tory controlled Westminster council which has dragged its feet. Enough. We want our city back from cars.

I agree Lynn.
I wouldn’t like to own any commercial properties in London right now and if people do stay working from home London employers will start to see they don’t need to pay London weighting and may start to employ outside of the City.

Contact trace and track will, along with all the other problems/issues, not help combat the spread of this virus should someone be infected but asymptomatic, they will have no reason to trigger this app. Yet we are told the majority either have little or no symptoms but can still be highly infectious!

Effective social distancing and good (personal and infrastructure) hygiene is the real key to preventing spread, anything that dilutes from that message is a problem, as this app and the rather risky idea of crowding streets with walkers and cyclists does.

If public transport capacity is down 90% then the govt needs to seriously consider removing cycle and bus lanes (not increase them!) to allow greater car parking, but once again the govt appears to be shacked up with the unthinking green blob.

On the subject of infrastructure hygiene, if they have not already been instructed to do so, can the govt mandate that Banks and Building Societies re-install their old-style glass security screens into their high street branches were they have been removed or sealed up, these old screens were designed to be both contact and fluid safe for the staff – get the banks fully open, not everything can be done online, via the telephone or via a automatic teller machine out in the street.

@MiC; You have totally miss understood my point, as usual, the govt can not track and trace those who do not trigger the app, if they are asymptomatic they are very unlikely to trigger it!

Also it is very unlikely that asymptomatic would ever get tested, in fact the guild lines as I’ve understood then for this app is that unless you start physically showing signs of infection you will not be entitled to a CV19 test, you will simply be expected to self-isolate for 14 days.

As for masks, they do not stop the spread of a virus, unless correctly fitting, hence why doctors and nurses are very particular, especially in high risk areas. The chances of the general public correctly wearing masks, never mind of a suitable type, is very doubtful, in such circumstances masks tend to give a fails scene of security and are thus worse than not wearing any.

“The UK government has admitted sending about 50,000 coronavirus tests to the US last week for processing after “operational issues” in UK labs.”

Instead of sending them to a neighbouring EU country with an excellent record in dealing with this pandemic, we prefer to entrust them to a clapped out country, with a clapped out president with the world’s worst contagion and 50m citizens who can’t afford any health insurance.

Why do the government have to “outline a road map” on the lifting of the lock down. What is wrong with just a plan or a strategy it is not a road map. Almost as annoying as “set up a computer dashboard”. Not quite as annoying as those irritating people who wave their hands about and pull funny faces next to Nichola Sturgeon. What is wrong with optional subtitles? I need to get a large post it note to stick in front of them. Why use one word when fifteen vague or meaningless ones will do seems to be the politician’s approach. That and endlessly repeating the blindingly obvious.

I hope I never hear another politician telling me that ‘every one of these deaths is not just a statistic but a a loved one, a parent, a grandparent, blah, blah, blah.

There’s no way I will go for this. I have no doubt people will find themselves visited by the police who will have decided I should not have been where I was and that I should not have been driving. Where is your bike?

We live in a police state. They’ve decided they don’t need law to back up their actions. Their intimidation can be justified and authorised by political opi ion.

The more sensible strategy would be to advise people to download the google and apple app, which doesn’t consume battery life as the NHS one does and will in any case likely be a requirement for anyone wanting to travel.

‘It means a person who does have a test and tests positive for the virus also *needs to co-operate* over recent contacts’…..Or else?

This sentence sounds disturbingly like a sinister threat of some form which doesn’t surprise me. What is the law on this? Can the State force a person to download an app onto their smartphone? I don’t own one and I suspect many others don’t own one either.

Is the politically socialist and now political activist NHS part of this authoritarian attack on our desire to remain private from the State? It wouldn’t surprise me. Cover ups, NDAs and fat compensation payments always help to protect the public reputation of a morally bankrupt public institution and their political promoters such as Labour and this party in government.

The CV-19 has afforded the British political class a most golden opportunity to re-jig the State to individual relationship in favour of this increasingly authoritarian British State

The private individual is now viewed as a THREAT. Thatcher worked tirelessly to promote the sanctity of the private. This government and a similar minded one elected in 1997 has reversed all that she tried to encourage and inculcate

I hold my verdict until I hear what Boris has to say on Monday. I sense I hear a violin playing while Covid19 continues it’s grip. I have heard nothing to date that suggests a well considered plan has been devised to return people to work. So long as good weather persists I anticipate increasing numbers of people will let themselves out of jail irrespective of pleas from No10.

The key is testing to ascertain who has it, who has had it, and who is clear of it. Such testing would need to be continuous at a frequency dictated by medical /scientific advice. Until such is in place any return to normal daily behaviour risks a second spike. While I cannot fly to the UK I find it unbelievable that others can, test free with instructions to isolate; fat chance.

Yesterdays nonsense about pavement widening and facilitating more cycling is an invitation to anarchy, a comic distraction by Shapps. I would have been more impressed had he taken serious steps to facilitate working from home. We need a serious budgetary assault on government spending plans prior to Covid19. HS2 at unbelievable cost and no profit projection must go. Huawei is a Chinese burden we do not need. Not to mention the myriad of government quangos due for the bonfire years ago.

We give the impression that we continue to be controlled by events in a daily reactive way. It is long overdue , we/government begin taking control.

Happy with the PM’s outline plan/aspiration for progress out of the Covid19 situation. I put the attitude of the other nations in the UK , especially from Sturgeon in Scotland as political posturing and backing away from leadership, in effect saying we will see what happens in England and put ourselves on standby to say I told you so.

I did not expect Boris to dot every “I” and cross every “T”, he would have been there for hours. More meat can be put on the bone tomorrow, but even then there will be situations that cannot be answered. One being what happens to schoolchildren in single parent families or where both parents normally work, when said parents are encouraged to return to work. No doubt there will be others. On balance a sensible statement.

Of the fifty odd thousands who have already died from (or death has been accelerated by) this virus what proportion caught it in hospital, from care workers or in nursing homes? The majority I rather suspect.

The only person I know who has died from it was an elderly man who went to hospital with a minor stroke, caught the virus in hospital, was discharged (untested) to a care home (where he may have infect many people), then discharged home (living with five other members of an extended family) then rapidly taken back in the hospital and finally tested positive and died shortly after the result came though.

The NHS surely did far more harm than good in this case.

Matt Ridley has a good article in the Spectator this weeks, he is as sound on this as he is on Climate Alarmism.

100,000 dead if UK eases too fast – scientist warn – The Sunday Times headline today. Well it is clearly going to be about 100,000 anyway. We are at over fifty thousand already and with around 1,000 excess deaths each day from it currently. Though this number is slowly reducing. That was my guess at the start (just given the figures from the Cruise ship and adjusting for the different age profile). I still think it will be about right.

If the NHS is really coping (which I do not believe given so many do not even get to one, many are getting little but a bed and an oxygen mask and normal treatment are cancelled) then we should certainly unlock now.

Perhaps this is the wrong way around Martin and it’s the residents who need to wear a mask and face visor when the care workers enters and have the hand gel after they touch their mugs, utensils etc. If there was a spike of care assistants in hospital being treated for Covid19 we’d know about it.

They want us all to download an app but the government won’t test the reducing numbers going into hospital each day right now, it’s like having a leak in your roof being told not to use the bathroom above the leak and putting sticking plasters over any holes to stop the water coming through rather than find the leak.

I stand by what I said, we are told that wearing a mask doesn’t stop the wearer of the mask catching it but it does reduce the risk to other people by catching sneezes and coughs, so if both wear a mask when within close contact it doubles the protection for the care worker.

We have been told that the people in the large category dying of this often without getting to hospital are the elderly in care and nursing homes, it has also been said that they are about 20% of new patients going into hospital, so they need a level of ppe protection when in contact with other people as well, we have been told face visors, masks and hand gel are the protection.

I don’t have a smartphone and have no intention of buying one just for this app. So my phone tells me I’ve come into contact with someone who has the virus….but wouldn’t they be at home, in isolation? Then I come into contact with someone who has had the virus…so what? they’re no longer infectious. If I self-isolate for fourteen days , then come out of home and immediately meet someone else who buzzes my phone, government expects me to go back into isolation again? The stupidity is off the wall. I’m afraid the real agenda behind this app is the start-up of a surveillance society….and I want no part of it.

Apple and Google devised a Covid alert system that guarantees privacy by keeping the user’s data on their phone and not transmitting any of it to a central database. So neither Apple nor Google nor anyone else has our data to pry into or sell. We just get an alert if we have been close to another user who has told their phone they have been infected.
Their system does use signal strength and time and proximity measurements to define what exposure means, it doesn’t just log every fleeting contact. Give them some credit for intelligence.

The Government decided that wasn’t good enough so they devised an app that feeds their central database. To be fair that would allow them to link with the traditional epidemiology tracking approach. But it raises a lot of privacy concerns which are not assuaged by the popular impression that it is all being run by cronies of Mr. Cummings.

And as was entirely predicted by many people from the beginning, trying to defeat the inbuilt privacy measures in the Apple iOS system in particular in this way causes all sorts of performance issues, eating up the battery life being the most obvious. But these cronies of Cummings thought they knew better than Apple how iOS works. So that’s another few million pounds the taxpayer won’t see back and weeks wasted when the Apple/Google system could already be in use.

+1 – a humiliating, costly shambles which has at last, bankrupted the nation. Boris in not in a fit mental state to make important decisions. He has not yet recuperated and the men in grey suits are required forthwith. No babies in high office because of positive discrimination, required in 10 Downing Street. We need a proper Tory with gravitas and ability. This is the U.K. on life support.

The 2 best Prime Ministers this country has every had is Tony Blair and David Cameron, both had centralist political policies and in fact it was Tony Blair that saved this country after the disastrous 70s and 80s both decades of extremes.
Boris is by his own admission a liberal Conservative and still displays his London Mayor credentials. The far right thought they could drag him to their side but he has and is showing more centralist politics so good fo9r him. Although there is hope that Starmer will take us into a customs union with the EU. I don’t think this leaving argument is over by a long shot, especially if the US vote Trump out and then have close ties with EU

Testing and tracing comprise a sensible plan for preventing spread, yet such measures respond only after individuals have been infected. It is however, among our best-known means of protection.
Perhaps scientist could create a Seek & Destroy method, which like a predator attacks only its target prey virus without interfering with humans. In that plant life grows towards light, a photo-negative of the virus might act as a light filter to grow such an opposite for laboratory testing.

How many NHS admin staff are there Martin? How many per hospital? If there is hardly any admissions right now what other work are they doing? The other night they said there are 11,000 patients, we have 1256 hospitals? How many patients do we usually have per hospital? How many day patients all those treatments are cancelled so what are those staff doing on full pay?

The government employs thousands and thousands of people with administration capabilities, you asked who I’d employ if I was the government I’d redeploy the most capable of them are their contracts really so inflexible that they couldn’t trace contacts of the latest cv19 patients by speaking on the phone to their next of kin? All those on more than £2500 per month and then I’d furlough the rest like the private sector have had to if they’ve no work for people.

Why FredH? Why can’t NHS administrative staff be redeployed to track and trace and alert neighbours to this dangerous virus that impacts on their colleagues? If they have no work how difficult is it to call people in the family of new patients to determine possible infection routes and stop the virus spreading and tell contacts of the very ill patient to self-isolate for 14 days to protect supermarket workers and others that could walk near to them on narrow patients.

At the early stages, suspecting sufferers were supposedly contacting NHS 111 to advise symptoms. Surely, this should have been used to follow up in subsequent days the development/recovery. A visit by nurse practitioner/medic/sample taker in Hazmet protection and metaphorical ‘sealing’ of that household. All occupants detailed and grounded. A supply line sorted for supplies. Neighbours would take note and avoid (‘like the plague’). Really, the apparent lack of emergency planning by all levels of Government is the greatest of shambles. Can it all be attributable to Common Purpose. We need to know.

My faith in the competence of government, the quangocracy and especially the civil service has been irrevocably damaged over their shambolic and disastrous handling of the Chinese plague virus crisis.

There is no way that I’m going to download an app to my personal mobile phone that operates on any sort of centralised government database. I gather numerous departments, starting with the security service, the police and the Department of Work and Pensions are already demanding location and contacts access as they reorganise their empires to take advantage of the crisis.

The government absolutely has to get the timing of the end of lockdown right. The nation decisively rejected Jeremy Corbyn at the last election and put its trust in Boris Johnson. They have been rewarded by the loss of tens of thousands of their grandparents in care homes and many brave NHS staff working on the front line – as well as their investments and their livelihoods.

A major cabinet reshuffle is clearly necessary and a way must be found to dispense with the services of those incompetents in the civil service who have been running the show.

Trial on Isle of Wight didn’t go too well. Ping, ping, ping. Needs a phone less than two years old!
Much better to have a basic, functioning service.
I bang on again. What’s WRONG with isolation wards in local hospitals?
What is WRONG with training our own nurses etc?
WHY was everything changed?
Fat lot anyone cared about the NHS when it was all sold off and given away.
And whatever the powers that be are up to the one thing we actually know is that they don’t give a solitary, single fig for our well being!!

When is the UK Government going to get on top of this crisis?
Not only have they lied about 122,000 tests carried out in one day, but still canot reach the target of 100,000 and now Boris is saying we will reach 200,000 tests per day by 1st June!

Last week the UK sent 50,000 swabs to be tested in USA – as if they haven’t a big enough problem them selves!

Where are the 200,000 tests going to be done? China? Germany? USA?
Does anyone believe we can do it in UK.?
UTTER shambles.

So Sir John, you hold this back because it is too painful for you being a loyal Conservative. That means you are joining the cover-up. The truth is hard to take but essential if you and the Party are to hold your head up and expect to be re-elected.

What is wrong with getting millions of UK tests done wherever there is spare capacity?
One minute you moan about us needing more testing now you complain when the laboratory is outside the UK
I don’t understand your logic.

It would have been better to have done this immediately. Maybe with prior agreed and authorised outline contracts with local & also backup agreements with geographically dispersed proven allies & reliable suppliers.

Testing and tracing is the way to control a pandemic, so I learned back in January from comment easily found on the internet.

In advance of the next pandemic, would it be an idea to set-up a public body with a budget of billions and staffed with knowledgeable, resourceful people to plan for such eventualities in ways that mean we could cope as and when?

it is reported that the Taiwanese govt have offered their excellent technology to our govt for track and trace. This would serve two excellent purposes – access to proven technology from expert sources, and an opportunity to support Taiwan in the face of relentless bullying by the Chinese communist party.

An opportunity to save some public sector costs has arisen: abolish Blair’s biased ‘electoral commission’ which has carried out a disgraceful and bungled attempt to persecute a couple of Brexit volunteers, one of them barely more than a young student, for the last four years. Let the people responsible be kicked off the public payroll and find themselves something useful to do. Even those who didn’t vote for Brexit (with a few exceptions obviously) are appalled at the bias of the electoral commission.

Test and trace is easier when there are 5 cases of Coronavirus in your country –
like there were when Boris Johnson was focussed on Brexit in January – than when there are 216,000 cases in your country, which is where we are now.

Just like with Trump in America, the complete and utter failure of the British government to act throughout January, February and early March is a national scandal. ‘A chaotic disaster to is how Mr Obama has generously described Mr Trump’s abysmal performance.

The primary duty of a government is to keep its people safe – and this mob have been so busy working out how to try to keep you safe from their self inflicted Brexit that they missed the Coronavirus threat completely.

Sick old people were allowed back to their care homes, what’s happened there is a national scandal. Testing has been a fiasco. The self imposed daily target has been hit just once. PPE from Turkey. Never have we had such an incompetent government. What a shambles.

NHS Pandemic Rapid Discharge Protocol.
What a great idea that turned out to be!
That’s why so many infected old people were sent back to Care Homes?
Like the elderly lady who was admitted to hospital with LACK OF OXYGEN readings/symptoms and was then rapidly discharged to make room for Covid patients!!
Could you make it up? Honestly!

I’m watching the Sophy Ridge show. It happened to be on TV as I switched on, otherwise I would not have chosen to watch it of course being sound of mind.

These interviews with notables will be deleted from the public record within months so as not to cause severe embarrassment and pain for their families in the future. This is okay. I am keeping record for future generations without mention of names for my books to come.

Oh, you mean fully implement the surveillance state?
The time for track & trace was back in January as the infection only had one way of reaching this island, importation. The opportunity was ignored. Importation of the virus is still being ignored.
Let me think…
The healthy are under house arrest.
Most independent businesses have been forced to shut against their will.
The politicised police farce are implementing Minister’s wishes as if the law.
We must protect the deified NHS at all costs, when its remit is supposed to be to protect OUR health.
Now they want to surveil us, with a centralised database, on the pretext of a virus that still has not been isolated?
Are ‘social credits’ next?

The completely disproportionate and continuing overreaction smacks of opportunism to implement a totally non-related agenda. The initial error of judgement, based on now proved false ‘modelled science’, is not being corrected turning the error into a mistake. Or was it the plan? From the ‘green agenda’ announcements yesterday, another ‘agenda’ being driven by false science ‘modelling’ it would appear to be part of deliberate planning. Meanwhile Bliar boasts that his nwo ‘people’ are embedded in Govts to drive the plan.

One thing that you may not be aware of is the mysterious ‘new’ health database. I’m not sure if this app data is intended to be part of it. As my husband is in a seriously vulnerable group, as every health professional tells him but he’s never had ‘the’ letter, during one conversation with the doctor it seemed that there was a ‘new’ database. We’ve periodically had to check that we’re still opted out of these ‘health’ databases due to privacy concerns. It seems that a new one has been set up & people automatically added. How many more databases are being set up without our knowledge?

This could be of value and is well worth a try. Testing and tracing have worked elsewhere.
Slightly off this thread, I see Matt Ridley is observing that children not only rarely suffer appreciably from the virus but don’t pass it on to others either. If confirmed, schools could be opened PDQ.
He also cites an overseas study showing those deficient in vitamin D are 19 times more likely to be coronavirus victims. I would like to know more about this (how is deficient defined?) but perhaps banning sunbathing was the worst thing to do. It might have been better to let people enjoy the parks and sunbathe even if spacing wasn’t ideal.

Doesn’t Britain pay France to guard its coast around £50 million I think 🤔. Why aren’t the boats just turned around by the Navy/Coastguard? Is it just an agreement from our politicians to take so many anyway, I thought May agreed to this with the UN?

Pathetic isn’t it Bob? The English coastguard are only following orders from the UK Government. No wonder they keep coming in their droves when they know that nice UK Government will escort them in and put them up in a nice hotel and give them money and food. What a pity we don’t have a Government or Home Secretary with the guts to instruct the coastguard to meet them but instead of bringing them here, order them to turn around and escort them back to where they came from. And STOP paying the French Government for allowing it to happen. Patel has failed miserably.

We’re not. If they are picked up in British waters or by a British vessels they are brought to the UK. That is the law. If they are picked up in French waters they are taken to France. It is against international law not to help people in trouble at sea – whether or not it is their fault that they got into trouble. If they are here they are perfectly entitled to claim asylum. If they are from Iran or Syria – as most are – their asylum claim is likely to be successful.

Good for them for escaping persecution in pursuit of a better life for their families. And shame on those of you who preach hate against them.

I’d have thought you’d be there with a megaphone advising them to stay in the EU for their own good. Why do you think they leave a safe, sensible, prosperous EU country to come here? Come on, what is it are they wrong or are you? You and they can’t both be correct.

Perhaps the Border Farce should be charged with a aiding and abetting people-trafficking. When the government is able to stem the flow of cross-Channel dinghyists, I might – just might – start thinking of it as remotely competent. Two things need to happen: (1) most (75% plus) need to get flown straight back to their countries of origin (not to France); (2) those given asylum should get nothing from the state other than an NI number. No social or emergency housing. No money. No access to the Welfare system. Ever! Then the flow will stop.

I’m beginning to wonder whether these little boats are bringing the modern Huguenots? With 750 no go zones exempt from the Covid19 lockdown, 15,000 churches including Notre-Dame de Paris razed to the ground, maybe we should be offering asylum from Macron’s France!

It’s rather late in the day to resort to an app to discover whether you’ve been placed at risk. A good idea in the very early stages of an emergent infection when only a few people are infectious. We have had about 2 months with this disease in the country to identify the jobs of those who have gone down with it. How about publishing the occupation breakdown of those infected, then we can all see the activities that might place us at risk?

The app has been launched in our area. Then I find out that supermarket staff (public facing, high risk perhaps?) aren’t allowed to have their mobile phones with them whilst at work. I expect this to be the case in many other public facing jobs.

This approach does not sound thought through, except to test the roll out of further tracking and control of the population.

The likely failure will be that limited testing resource is not directed to the points of maximum leverage (in terms of economic return per increase in R), but rather to the infected cases that have been close to many but not in a high probability of transmission environment for a long time. Overall it mostly looks like a smoke and mirrors exercise by Govt to be seen to be acting whilst keeping the fear bigged up. Let’s face it the Govt is suggesting this without even telling us how many of the new cases are related to NHS staff, hospitals or care homes. How many of the new cases are a real mystery?

That said, there might be relevance to running the app with its guaranteed withdrawal and wiping of the app for perhaps 3 months, if and only if, all public transport is opened up and the tracing is focussed on rush hour close contacts in those environments. This.may be a route to keeping R down in what is a bottle neck to economic recovery, but it is.pointless without opening up the transport. We need modelling / a calculation released on this.

I think there are two possible cases of State monitoring. The first and most common is by an untrusted Govt that has instilled fear in the population,.which is what the UK has done over the past decades and continues to do. The second, if it exists at all, is where a trusted Govt protects the liberty of the population, monitoring then helping against widely accepted definition of crime such as violence – but the monitoring should not be against political protest, the way people dress, how people teach … it needs to protect and encourage a non-judgemental, non-fearing, liberal society, which is far from.where the UK is.

Funny how the rulers took away freedom of speech, association, combination and movement to impose industrialisation. To take us out of an agrarian economy and traditional way of life and into a rich-enriching nightmare.
And then a fairly handy war…automation did not require huge families to tend the fields.
Same things being done now in the name of a virus? Control, impound, impoverish, disenfranchise and dispossess.
What next? Continued isolation and imprisonment ( now it SUITS to have us work at home) and then bring on the A.I. and bizarrely turn the clock back to preindustrial times. “Get on your bike takes on a whole new meaning!”.
It is only ever about making money ( for some) and (not many) workers are now required!

Aside: The Govt needs to start talking down the fear of the virus and not using the rumoured language of ‘dangerous phase’. It needs to talk up the urgency of economic recovery without talking down the economy. It needs to stop the furlough, grant etc. addiction and unfairness; if such schemes are needed UBI is fairer and reduces risk to those choosing to retrain, start new businesses, even self-isolate.

That is a misrepresentation. People are already on money for not working (80%). A UBI would be lower and not break the pricing mechanism for resources. The current furlough system rewards the potential of returning to work in roles that may no longer be relevant to the supply society needs. A UBI gives the Basic support so that people can redirect their resource to fulfil the supply the country needs. Viewing it as National Dividend escapes the misrepresenration – it is a return / dividend payment for being a ‘shareholder’ in the country/society. Practically it means inefficiencies like minimum wage laws, complex benefit systems etc can be dumped. Functionally it can be made from a created part (essentially QE direct to people which can be part of monetary policy – rhis part would be rduced if AD is outstripping AS), a progressive consumption tax (moving to reduce the distorting role of income taxes) and a border adjusted carbon tax with dividend (levelling up the international playing field). As it is not needs based there is not competition based on need (the socialist, its my right way); people who want more work more, people who want to take a risk for a new innovative business still can, knowing they will not be completely destitute. Correctly constructed it is a policy that conservatives ought to fight for.

UBI – universal basic income
it would encourage people to work and better themselves, most would, some maybe after a short while.
it would allow for a large reduction in the welfare admin.
it likely improves mental health & well being of vulnerable people who fall through the gaps, some who may not claim by themselves.
likely less crime
it would bind us all together a little more.
the money would be spent and local business would benefit.

Bring in a flat tax, wealth tax, and land tax reform and reform the fractional reserve banking system to multiple full reserve banks, maybe introducing failure and competition for shareholders, bond holders but not small depositors.

The money would circulate and production would rise to meet the demand providing revenue to business.

The British are at a very dangerous point at the moment with the scared half of the public willing to give up their freedom and privacy without a thought to goodness knows who, soon our faces will be popping up on advertising boards at the shops to sell us more targeted products. Walk past someone’s living room window on the sidewalk with them inside with the virus and you can’t work for two weeks, for many people that’s just £97 per week to live off – the people making this decision of course will be on full sick pay for half a year if they need it!

People like Davis and Chakrabarty were worried about an ID card but this is much more intrusive and as always the 25% of the worst offenders of every rule, regulation just don’t carry this app or have one on a phone they hardly use whilst keeping an unchipped phone when they visit their lover, or second home, or visit a relative – you know like a lot of our higher ups have been doing while we’re all being good little citizens sat inside flats overheating.

Self isolation: Problem here.
Recent research (eureferendum.com for the details) shows that indoors is where the virus loves to live. So hospitals, Care Homes, people’s homes, warm closed off shops, public transport, not so much cold churches, are ideal places to develop the disease.

Outside it is very hard for the virus to spread. So the officious actions of the police in St James’ Park yesterday were counter productive. And they bring the entire state into disrepute too.

There’s an old saying ‘’you’re only ever 3 paychecks away from being homeless’’

Well since 2008 SMEs have only ever been 3 months away from closure

Its difficult for politicians and those receiving a public salary to realise that the lives, careers and confidence of the private sector has been on a knife edge for the past 12 years….and this continued lockdown is the last straw

The NHS has morphed from a primary provider of medical services to the general public to a sinister political organisation with political intent and a political mission. The Tories and Labour have assisted this most concerning development.

Some people trust the NHS. This general trust is being abused as a cover to roll out beta testing for a system of State tracking, monitoring and control

The ‘Clap our carers’ agenda is purely political and must be ignored to prevent conditioning and weaken peoples critical mind.

The NHS is desperate to put itself beyond all control, all accountability, all criticism and to become politically untouchable and immune from all forms of transparency.

When I am now exposed to Government, NHS and other forms of celebrity backed and product backed propaganda I simply turn over my tv or radio. This is nothing less than Germany-1929 and the Soviet union all rolled it one. It is an attack on the very culture of this nation and our embrace of freedom of expression, freedom of thought and freedom from State interference

I cannot believe libertarians from the Tory party are silent about these most disturbing developments. The silence becomes even more deafening this week when the Europhile and Labour controlled Electoral Commission was exposed for its political bias and civil crimes against British citizens

What is happening to this once most hallowed nation? We have become a hollow nation. It’s utterly tragic and completely unnecessary and all to protect the Tory-Labour Commons status quo and destroy all threats to that

Not the workers….
The upper management, just like those at the BBC, have been infiltrated over the years to become a leftie politically motivated organisation using the religion perception to promote itself.

The incompetence with which this key element of a the response ( testing ) has been handled should not surprise us. Parliament and the civil services are a unreformed public sector bureaucracies. Supplying a product, is a low priority.
Less forgivable, is the daily disinformation coordinated by the propaganda team that gave you the lies 0f Brexit. The irony is that it is ineffective anyway. They think the same level of bored disinterest that was their friend before applies now; but it does not. Having identified a real danger to themselves the public wants the facts. They want experts not tedious entertainers;doers ,not talker .
Brexit remains unpopular and when its reality comes on top of Covid 19 I doubt the inevitable attempt to”blame the foreigners ” will fly, certainty the same anti immigrant hate-mongering will not.

You have only to look at 5G in China to see exactly what is planned for us in the name of tracing for healthcare issues. Hugely alarming, but something that fits the globalists/one world government agenda perfectly.

True Conservatives have got to stop the roll out of 5G. Its purposes are not benign, although it will be portrayed as a benefit in order to make acceptance more likely e.g. helping in the “threat” from coronavirus by installing contact tracing.

We should be awake to this massive threat to our liberty and freedom. Boris, like Theresa May before him, is, at the moment, on the wrong side of the equation. Conservative MPs should be fighting the rollout of 5G with all they have got. Not at all impressive so far – merely a squeak from David Davis.

On testing, the Government has got the overall capacity right, although there is no harm in providing more, but it hasn’t got the logistics right. There is (no doubt temporarily) inadequate laboratory capacity so that some test samples have had to be sent to America.
People are being directed to testing centres a long way from their homes, indicating inadequate testing capacity in some localities. That can be rectified. And people with no access to a car cannot easily get tested. Either mobile testing vehicles will be needed to deal with that or testing capacity near bus stations and railway stations will be needed – or both. All of the problems should be fixable.

But have we got the capacity to track and trace every contact of every person infected with Coronavirus? I ask this because there are north of 4,000 new cases every day. Some degree of automation will be needed, either the app being tested in the Isle of Wight or some other method.

On a related topic, Sajid Javed has the right idea. It is up to the elderly and the vulnerable to self isolate to a greater extent than we require of the healthy population. As long as we keep the dreaded R value below 1 we should be OK.

Lindsay, On 15 March 2020 Hancock warns that over-70s would be asked to “self-isolate”, by not leaving their homes, for an extended period “within weeks”. Due to the voluntary nature of the restrictions, there is no interference with human rights. That was the last time my Parents saw anyone within their home, food is delivered by the family to their garden wall.

This was the advice
1. The UK government is advising that everyone practices social distancing to reduce the transmission of coronavirus (Covid-19). These measures, to reduce the social interaction between people, involve: Avoiding contact with someone who is displaying symptoms of coronavirus (Covid-19). These symptoms include high temperature and/or new and continuous cough

2. Avoid non-essential use of public transport, varying your travel times to avoid rush hour, when possible

3. Work from home, where possible. Your employer should support you to do this. Please refer to employer guidance for more information

4. Avoid large gatherings, and gatherings in smaller public spaces such as pubs, cinemas, restaurants, theatres, bars, clubs

5. Avoid gatherings with friends and family. Keep in touch using remote technology such as phone, internet, and social media

6. Use telephone or online services to contact your GP or other essential services.
Source: gov.uk

16 March 2020 YES the 16 March 2020
Boris Johnson advises everyone in the UK against “non-essential” travel and contact with others and suggests people should avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and work from home if possible. At this stage, these are merely suggestions. He warns that other vulnerable groups, including pregnant women and those with underlying conditions, may be asked to self-isolate. Many business express anger that the PM has not forced them to close – which could have offered them financial protection.

20 March 2020
Boris Johnson orders all pubs, cafes, restaurants, bars and gyms to close. The chancellor also announces that the taxpayer will meet 80 percent of the wages of employees temporarily sent home from firms hit by the crisis.

23 March 2020
The prime minister announces a nationwide lockdown – a drastic set of measures restrict movement and assembly. The government also asks about 1.5million vulnerable people who will likely need hospital treatment to “shield” themselves. This involves voluntarily staying at home for 12 weeks to avoid getting the virus.

A question for the Government “Given the significance of the R value, can you share with the people of the country the exact figure to 3 decimal places, how you calculate it and the input data used in its calculation?”

You can have a very high R number in a closed environment such as a nursing home, but for those outside it will be so low that it won’t be relevant to normal life.
Also cities will have a higher R number than rural areas, so somebody living on the moors has a negligible chance of catching it and shouldn’t even be taking the average R in the UK as having any meaning to them. Conversely for somebody travelling between care homes a low R doesn’t mean they have a small chance of catching.

Top and bottom is if you can isolate very high R situations the remainder of the population can continue as usual. We seem to have done the reverse.

How much longer can you justify locking up the whole country and bankrupting thousands of businesses for a virus that has a 99.5% recovery rate. People are now waking up and ignoring these draconian rules in ever increasing numbers. If it’s not stopped soon then you will have a huge problem to deal with.

3 million extra people on the NHS waiting lists since February and growing fast.
Millions more now waiting for tests on possible serious ailments that once eventually investigated could need fast treatment to save them.

1. 375,000 lives saved (multiplied by remaining life expectancy of those) has not been shown to be less than the loss of life years due to the economic shock. The GFC took about a year or two off life expectancy gain (it was about a year for people already at 65) – this is multiplied over the whole of the population for ever (or whatever period you think is suitable for catch up). Even if your figure is correct nowhere has the Govt shown this is worth the cost in future years of life lost.

2. Your number is probably high as you should multiply by 1-1/R0

3. In the extreme case, one can image reducing this further e.g. by a ramped up intentional infection administered intradermally to reduce the amount of pulmonary infection (get it though the skin rather than through the trachea to reduce the risk). Through the ramp this would allow more plasma to be collected to treat those who did not have sufficient immune response even if caught ID.

Faith in this app is going to turn out to be very largely mis-placed and we are in danger of wasting a lot of time, effort and money that could be far better spent in other ways of controlling the spread of this virus. The potential faults such as lack of distribution, not covering the ‘at-risk’ groups, mis-readings etc are endless.

We could be far more successful by ramping up the 111 call centres throughout the country so a call is answered within 2 minutes and every operator is given a detailed script to ascertain if the caller has the slightest chance of having CV19. If so, they are called back within 30 minutes by a suitably trained person which could then lead to isolation and a home test as envisaged with the app

The NHS, PHE et al have a shocking record in software development due to lack of quality staff and continual alteration to system design during programming. The government has made a very serious mistake in not recruiting the skill of Google and similar organisations who have the knowledge and very experienced staff for this work.

The cost of this mistake in both lives and money will be enormous so I hope the I o W test fails and we keep track of the spread via 111.

Meanwhile, back in the real world where I live, groups of children with their parents have already decided not to stay at home as they gather in local parks and open spaces, with absolutely no social distancing whatsoever. Makes the last weeks of house arrest seem so very worthwhile. Please, stop the slogans. They are confusing. The right message is not getting through to the right people at the right time. What a shower!

Do we keep our eyes open for the virus creeping up on us and shout ‘Gotcha’ when we spot it?

and another thing –
The UK public is being fed “number theatre” by the government instead of “genuine information”, a leading statistician from the University of Cambridge told the BBC on Sunday. David Spiegelhalter criticised the government’s daily briefing, saying “seems to be co-ordinated really much more by a Number 10 communications team” rather than led by experts.
“I just wish the data was being brought together and presented by people who really knew its strengths and limitations and could treat the audience with some respect,” he said.

It was an interview worth listening to. Why on earth can’t people like him present the figures rather than those who do, who seem to be unscientific so-called scientists and doctors. Well meaning, but anyone with a feel for numbers has no trust in the way they’re presented.

Yes Bob, we are all doing the best we can to improve this nightmare & people’s lives and ultimately people’s livings whilst we endure what has been described as Enforcement Paralysis which I can only agree with. So much for the PM’s statement in August that illegal arrivals would be treated as illegal and would be ‘sent back’ We have local south coast MPs, for both Dover and Hastings & Rye also doing their bit in contacting the Home Office on behalf of their local residents & the country in general. The Home Secretary we hear is in touch with France’s Mr Castaner we’re told but it seems all are powerless. People are concerned, very concerned and also frustrated with the lack of information & transparency after these almost daily events. What is happening to these arrivals. Are they detained. Are they questioned & then released. If released, where & how are they placed. If they have relatives here, what’s the situation then. How much is all this costing councils and taxpayers. Are they tested for CV19 and are they tested & monitored thereafter. A quote the other day from the Care4Calais founder – ‘ These people are fleeing terrifying situations in some of the most dangerous parts of the world. They aim for the UK because they want to be safe ‘ ….. Over the last few weeks we have seen arrivals reported in the media as being from Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Kuwait, Libya, Afghanistan & Syria to name but a few. What can be done, very little I suspect.

The Daily Telegraph calls for the abolition of the sinister and the danger to our democracy, the Electoral Commission. This is an utterly infected State body by extremists and political animals that targets what they perceive as any political threat to their worldview and their political mission

Their behaviour before, during and after the EU ref was ultra vires. Their response to voting fraud at Peterborough was despicable and designed to keep out the Brexit party and protect Labour

Abolish it NOW.

All Leave Tory MPs should act as one to call for the dismantling of this pro-Labour and pro-EU activist body.

Include the BBC, the CPS and any other body that acts politically when its job is to be independent and impartial

I don’t have a smartphone, I don’t even have a mobile phone. Thoroughly recommended.

I was brought up with a strong ethic of self-discipline, social responsibility and independent thought.
I do not need or want any government interference or advice on how I go about my daily life, thank you very much.

The government’s job should be no more than to provide accurate up-to-date information (not propaganda) on the virus, and thus enable logical widespread debate and understanding of the issues – and no more than that.

It’s time for the nanny state (and its BBC friend) to get back in its box.

‘Dr Mark Forrest, an intensive care doctor in the north-west of England, says he is “seriously worried” that ignoring the lockdown will increase the pressure on units like his. He tweeted: “Our ICU already has more Covid cases than 2 weeks ago as more people go out. Ignoring lockdown has us seriously worried for the next few weeks.” This from the Guardian. At last someone gives us some information.

So now let’s investigate. Who are the new Covid cases on his ICU? Were they working, those that were working what jobs? Did they have ppe? What sort of ppe? Did they do unmasked dancing on Tik Toc? Seems they can do this but a Conga line following the nhs staff 2m rule dance routines and you’re evil and will kill them! If the new covid19 patients were not working did they have medical/care workers visit their home? Do they have multi-age occupancy homes? Is it people on the same street, we have a street near us where they all sit out everyday together socialising kids playing together. Ask their neighbours who comes and goes if they claim they haven’t left their home for the lockdown. Just one ICU to check and it will give us all a better informed picture of where the lockdown needs to continue and where the leak is that needs identifying, isolating and fixing for good. Who needs the highest protection?

You and I have been on the same page on this for the past few weeks when this information MUST have been available.

In the absence of statistical evidence, I’ll put forward a couple of actual circumstances locally plus another couple of possible to be disproven if anyone wishes:

1 Lady in her 80s wants to continue her voluntary role at local hospital. Nobody tried to pursuade her otherwise. Well meaning but she caught the virus and passed away.
2 Teenager went to stay with granny before lockdown, had a slight flu, recovered, went home. Granny still has CV.
3 Care home worker travels between hospital/2 care homes/5 elderly patients in community with no PPE then back to boyfriend at home. Boyfriend misses seeing mates and goes round for a swift bevvy with them. One of his mates goes back to granny with whom he lives, who then ends up in ICU.
4 Nurse’s friend is freed up from regular work and he offers to do a bit of decorating for her while she’s at work. They cross paths as she leaves for work in the morning, she hands him the key, works in the house, then goes back to wife and family. Carries the virus back home. One of the kids goes to see granny a few days later, who is soon in ICU.

In their Sitrep for the 4th May (and for days following) they have a lesser number of cumulative fatalities for the USA than for the 3rd May. The negative figure of -1696 cumulative total fatalities for the 4th should really have alerted them to the fact that their data was erroneous. How can one trust an organisation that doesn’t proof-read important data BEFORE they publish it for all the world to see! ?

Almost 1700 resurrections – wow. Something of a miracle I would say. Perhaps someone should inform The Pope?

So typical of Arts graduates who don’t understand science: they either ignore it or put undue faith in it. JR is rightly sceptical about the ‘app’ being a solution that will make up for the government’s inability to organise a timely and coherent response to the virus. If the virus is to be contained, then testing, tracing and quarantining must be introduced and enforced.

The excuse that there’re too many cases to have started tracing already is nonsense; if it had not been stopped on March 13th we would not be in the situation we are now. As it is, just because it could not be used to eliminate the virus because of the plethora of cases which has built up because of wanton negligence, it does not mean that it would not have a positive impact, however small, and far more importantly, it would have enabled the tracers to be recruited, trained and have practice in the field, and for the data they obtained to be collected and used to analyse how the epidemic is being spread as well as for the means of analysis being developed further and refined.

I hope the PM has something elevating to say this afternoon, but judging by the selective leaks I’ve heard there will be little relief in what he has to say. Even the small concessions have created some differences the Scottish nats will exploit for electoral purposes. Given how much they are being gifted by the English taxpayer I wish someone in the Cabinet would put them back in their box. The Swedes have got this right, and it was the path we started on; what a pity that Boris didn’t have the courage of his convictions. In order to save the NHS, we dumped, without testing, a lot of elderly people back into care homes from hospital beds, which are not filled anyway because most folk are terrified of entering hospital; the result of which is that some care homes have become rife with the Chinese flu. This whole exercise has been about the inadequacies of the NHS. As a 70+ person, I’m sure to be fingered for a further bout of house arrest. The only people who seem to be able to move with relative freedom around the UK are illegal immigrants, picked up by the laughably titled ‘Border Force’ and escorted to the safety of a South Coast port before onward transmission to a safe haven in the UK from which they will successfully contest any move to return them from whence they came. To say that I am disappointed in Priti Patel is a great understatement. The way in which our dear country has handled this virus is an embarrassment. I am ashamed by our lack of manufacturing capacity, our lack of expertise, the poor quality of many government ministers, the prevalence of short-termism, and the dreadful communication. May God help us.

Covid 19 is a brand name, it is not the virus. The virus is just another seasonal Coronavirus, the good news is as Fauci complained himself, Coronaviruses “resolve very quickly”. Those selling vaccines prefer them not to resolve so fast.

Competence seems to be lacking from Government Ministers over recent weeks. Britain’s ability to scale up Testing, Tracking and Tracing of Coronavirus to the scale needed to make possible lifting Lockdown without risking a vicious Second Wave of this virus is very much in doubt. As reported today, 50,000 tests for Coronavirus have been sent to the USA because this country does not have the capacity to test at-scale. If Britain cannot maintain 100,000 tests a day what hope for testing millions a day to enable the authorities to jump on fresh outbreaks whenever/ wherever it occurs and to keep on-top of Coronavirus’ spread in real time?

Then there is the ongoing crisis of PPE equipment, goggles provided to frontline workers being 20 years out of date, inadequate supplies of gloves, gowns and face-masks. Not before time, the Prime Minister Boris Johnson has hauled Matt Hancock into his office for a bollocking. He needs to be told to shape up-fast- or else!

Britain now has the highest Coronavirus death-toll in Europe complete with a decimated Economy arising from the (essential) Lockdown. The disease in still rife in care-homes.

It is vital that much extra PPE (up to standard) is procured, much more scaling up of testing and tracing is done and the capacity to do this increased greatly. At the same time Lock-down measures should be eased incrementally (with the vital R number calculated in the days following before additional easing is undertaken). Jobs vital for the Economy (undertaken with strict social distancing measures in place) must be the first to be allowed to resume. Yourself, Sir and other Conservative MPs worried about the continued electoral prospects for the Conservative Party must get the Prime Minister to demand the competence and grasp of his Ministers on their departments- the NHS in particular needs someone who knows what they are doing! How about writing to Boris Johnson to ask that Matt Hancock be replaced by a Doctor who has worked for years in the NHS?

These Conservative MPs were doctors and have several years’ experience in the NHS:
1)Dr. Ben Spencer- new MP for Runnymede & Weybridge taking Philip Hammond’s Seat.
2) Virginia Crosbie- Ynys Mon (Wales). Took this Seat off Labour and she is a Microbiologist: Just the sort of person you need in stopping a lethal virus!
3) Sarah Atherton- new conservative MP for Wrexham. Worked as a nurse.

To restore the reputation of competence to the Conservative Party you need ministers who really have a grasp of what they are doing and the departments they run.

How can there be any plans to bring back full employment while UK politicians insist that 2m social distancing must be rigidly enforced ?

London Underground passenger numbers are down by 95% and the buses by 85%. It’s been estimated that if Social distancing is to be maintained at 2m, the number of commuters cannot be increased from today’s levels.

It seems that the only proper scientific research that was done on distancing was on indoor transmission only and it was found that 1 metre was OK. It’s interesting that the Germans have been working to 1.5m separation while we are on a very conservative 2m, inside and in the open air. It would be interesting to know if any group of scientists has carried out proper research on separation in the last three months and what conclusions were arrived at.

Similarly, why are we not been told the real R rate across the nation, excluding hospitals and care homes ? I suspect it’s much closer to 0.5 than 1.

With Germany almost fully open, including restaurants and bars, it will be very interesting to see if their reported increase in their R rate to 1.1 is based on very high rates in hospital and care homes or whether it is as a result of the relaxation in the lockdown.

Signs gone up to warn of Sherwood Road, Winnersh being closed for 2 weeks to resurface !!

It doesn’t need resurfacing – better candidates elsewhere.
And in Winnersh/Hurst dozens/hundreds of potholes remain – I think of how many could be tackled in 2 weeks without the major tarmacing machinery required to do a long stretch.

Under no circumstances will I be downloading this app. Firstly, the Government’s track record with personal data is abysmal. Secondly, I doubt it will remain committed to tracing those who may have Wuhan Flu, just some police decided to utilise their drones which weren’t restricted to their original purpose, when it became convenient.
The Security Services, Police, HMRC and DWP must be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect.

I don’t support the draconian lockdown – which both Prof Whitty and Matt Hancock admitted was not necessary across large areas of the country which had low rates of infection.

I’m never going to forget that a s0-called Conservative Government removed our Civil Liberties, with no debate, over a new ‘flu virus. Thank the Lord for the few dissenters in the Party and the media: well done in particular to Toby Young; Peter Hitchens; Brendan O’Neil.

I’d like the opportunity. I live out in the remote countryside (actually only 50 miles from Westminster as the crow flies (but not as tv or mobile phone signals fly). I need a satellite dish to get full tv. This is supposed to be the 5th richest country on the planet? Backward doesn’t even begin to describe it at times. I love the countryside and would not live anywhere else, but surely they could turn the wick up a bit, but of course there is not enough profit in it.

So luvvie Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t want to follow Boris’s advice but she will gladly accept money from England to pay the bills for her broke economy. Has she noticed how low oil prices are right now? These devolved nations are an unecessary expense.

Maybe she hasn’t, but I’ve just had my heating oil tank topped up with 500 litres for under a hundred quid. Never had that before and should be ok now until this time next year.
Sturgeon complains that she learned of Boris’s proposals in the papers. Who can blame him for not trusting her with anything? All she wants to do is to try to get in before he does to upstage him and try to turn attention away from her own appalling performance in Scotland.

Pleased to see that Boris is going it alone and relaxing things just a little in England, much to Sturgeon’s annoyance. She can rant and rave as much as she likes but 56m beats 5m any day of the week. That’s the reality of the situation.

Well I have listened to the long promised Statement about moving forward, and I have to say I am very disappointed with not only the content, which I think is confusing, but with the stupidity of thinking some people (construction and manufacturing) can go to work on Monday/tomorrow, if its safe to do so, and if you do not use public transport.

We all realise that getting back to near normal is going to take many months, will need to be done in stages, and must be conditional on progress of lower infection figures.

I guess you will be posting something about this tomorrow or even Tuesday after you have read the 50 page promised explanatory document, so I will save my detailed comments for that post.

Meanwhile a real opportunity to show the Government has a grip and a vision, has been sadly lost.

Social distancing has worked to contain the spread of the virus among the general public – largely pursued entirely voluntarily, and not under the thumb of the authorities. For now, the main problem is in hospitals and care homes, where fresh infections run riot among people living together at close quarters.

It seems to me that the government should be planning to harness the goodwill of people, rather than attempting some centralised tracking system. A track and trace system works provided that a good proportion of the contacts of someone who is found to have the virus promptly go into quarantine until tested to be not infected. For most people those contacts will be at home and at work: exceptionally in overcrowded public transport in big cities. I do not see that an app will manage to ensure that people adopt quarantine, and it provides no basis for organising testing of those who should be in quarantine to see if they can be released from it. We have heard nothing about how that is to be managed. To be workable, it really needs to be locally organised.

Local organisation has provided volunteer services that the NHS volunteer service has failed to provide. Recruit the small platoons! Stop with the nanny big state solutions.

Ever since Boris came on the scene, and long before he became PM, he has being flying kites and yesterday’s contribution was just another example of his bluster and bluff in the hope to get him through- everything on a wing and a prayer

Just how difficult a job is this with the new numbers now? You’ve got hundreds of highly educated degree level High School teachers who the taxpayer are having to pay full wages to do very little at home, why can’t they be redeployed to this task to save the British public they are hired to educate. If they can’t educate they can help to resolve the problem of how the virus is still leaking, who is spreading it. If I were a key worker I’d want to be useful, I’d be embarrassed to be sat at home on full pay watching nurses, doctors, fire personnel and police staff all doing work outside their homes.

Are the primary school teachers asked to write out all of their lesson plans right now so that when they do go back in September they don’t have to take a day off each fortnight to plan lessons?

If these were private businesses TFL, Schools, and many others with their bowls out now wanting billions of pounds of taxpayers money would be laid off or furloughed on lower pay. Redeploy people they work for us we don’t work for them, if their current role is unsafe then give them other essential work don’t sub-contract it out causing even more cost for taxpayers to pay off!

About John Redwood

John Redwood won a free place at Kent College, Canterbury, and graduated from Magdalen College Oxford. He is a Distinguished fellow of All Souls, Oxford. A businessman by background, he has set up an investment management business, was both executive and non executive chairman of a quoted industrial PLC, and chaired a manufacturing company with factories in Birmingham, Chicago, India and China. He is the MP for Wokingham, first elected in 1987.